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Guest Blog Post by Tim Marx, President and CEO of Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis

“The Dorothy Day Center offers unconditional love. It is not about judging people. It’s about seeing the inherent value in every human being; caring for them and helping them find their way to an improved situation. By giving strength those who most need it, we also strengthen the foundation of our entire community.”—Doug Baker, Chairman and CEO of Ecolab In 1981, the Saint Paul business community rallied with faith and civic leaders to create the Dorothy Day Center – a place for a few dozen people to get a hot cup of coffee and a few hours of refuge from the cold. Thirty-four years later, an historic public-private partnership is underway to advance a bold new vision for the Dorothy Day Center, and once again, the region’s business community is taking a leadership role. Business leaders step up to lead the private capital campaign for the Dorothy Day Center At this morning’s packed to capacity Dorothy Day Center Community Breakfast, Doug Baker, Chairman and CEO of Ecolab announced that he will be joined by Mary Brainerd, CEO of HealthPartners and Andy Cecere, COO of US Bank as co-chairs leading a $40 million private capital campaign to fund the new vision for the Dorothy Day Center.

“The Dorothy Day Center is a community emergency center that is falling apart, unable to meet the needs of the people who use its services and support. As in health care, we need better emergency centers and sustainable community solutions that truly meet the needs of people in our communities,” said Mary Brainerd. “A community that cares doesn’t leave people to the streets. I believe we care. We will build the new vision for the Dorothy Day Center,” said Andy Cecere. You can help us make this vision a reality! Please visit www.dorothydaycampaign.org to find out how you can donate, advocate, volunteer and help us spread the word and build support for this important community effort. We have before us an historic opportunity to fight the causes of homelessness and hopelessness—permanently. It will take all of us, together—individuals, business, public and philanthropic leaders—to make the new vision for the Dorothy Day Center a reality.

Post by the Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce's Manager of Public Affairs, Scott Beauchamp

For years the Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce has been a leader in supporting the expansion of transit in the East Metro. Our members know that without a world-class transit system, the Twin Cities will be unable to compete on a global scale. Transit is critical for employees to get to work and remains a key factor in attracting and retaining talent. It is imperative that we as region find ways to expand our transit system and do it in an accelerated manner. These reasons are exactly why the current legislative session is so important. However, what often gets lost in the debate over how to pay for transportation is the simple question of where is the funding going once we have it? A quick look at the Metropolitan Council’s Planned Transitway map makes the answer crystal clear. With two multi-billion dollar Light Rail lines going into place in the West Metro compared to $400 million dollars for BRT and a bunch of dotted lines in the East Metro, it’s easy to feel frustrated. As Sen. Bev Scalze, DFL-Little Canada puts it, "The transit lines that have been funded or are in complete or in preliminary engineering are ... on the left side of the map. The dotted lines on the right side of the map are the east-metro lines that are not yet complete." We are in complete agreement with Senator Scalze. The disparity in funding cannot continue any longer if the Twin Cities region as a whole is to prosper. Home to 40% of the population and many major universities, hospitals, and employers, the East Metro is vital to the success of our region. The need for more funding and an accelerated build-out of the transit system is clear, but if all the funding continues to flow west of the Mississippi we will have missed the opportunity to benefit the entire region; and we will all be worse off because of it. To read the entire article featuring Senator Scalze’s comments and explaining the funding gap further click here.

Post by the Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce's Manager of Public Affairs, Scott Beauchamp

Over the past few months I have had the pleasure of serving as a community representative on the city of Saint Paul’s CIB task force. The CIB task force is way for citizens to weigh in on the city’s Capital Improvement Budget. This budget is passed by the city council every two years and is used to fund improvement projects throughout the city such as adding lighting to a street or building playgrounds. These task forces are chosen from representatives of the neighborhood district councils and work together to rank what projects should be funded in the upcoming Capital Improvement Budget. Projects can be submitted by city staff or residents of Saint Paul. The projects are divided into three categories, one for each task force: Community Facilities, Streets & Utilities, and Residential & Economic Development. The process begins with an orientation in late February and then moves on to hearing presentations on all proposed projects starting in early March. I served on the Community Facilities task force meaning most of the projects we heard were park-related. The meetings are held on Monday evenings and last for approximately six weeks. During that time we heard about over forty nine projects located all over Saint Paul. During the final two meetings we met to discuss and rank the projects in order of importance. This was the most difficult part of the entire process as you have to ask yourself questions like what is more important, fixing contaminated soil in a playground or building a new fire station? Needless to say there is no easy answer. Eventually after much discussion we agreed on our final rankings and sent them off to the City Council. During the next few months the Council will review our rankings and decide if anything needs to be changed. Once that is complete these rankings will be adopted into the official 2016-2017 Saint Paul Capital Improvement Budget. It is a rewarding process knowing your input is being heard by the city and I encourage anyone who wants to get engaged to try it. Here is a link for more information on joining a task force, and here is a link for more ways to get involved on city committees.